That Grouper on the Menu? Turns Out It Was a Fish Tale

By LYNN WADDELL

Published: May 27, 2007

On the weathered deck of Dockside Dave's, a table of tourists waits for the sandwich that has long been as much a part of the beach experience here as the sunshine. Then it arrives, a half pound of fried filet of grouper, fresh from the dock, topped with lettuce, a slice of fresh tomato and splayed on an open bun.

As the waitress places the sandwich on the wooden picnic table, an onlooker asks, ''Is it real grouper?''

Kenny Gamble, Dockside Dave's manager and chef, has often heard the question since a Florida attorney general's investigation revealed this year that 17 of 24 other restaurants in and around Tampa Bay were passing off cheaper imported fish -- tilapia, bream, hake, sutchi, emperor, green weakfish, painted sweetlips -- as grouper.

The revelation hit hard here in Madeira Beach, the self-described ''grouper capital of the world'' because it produces more grouper than anyplace else in the United States. Grouper fishermen are already hard-pressed by fishing restrictions, higher fuel costs and the development taking over the waterfront.

''There are plenty of other things you can do for a living,'' said Bob Spaeth, owner of the Madeira Beach Seafood Company and several fishing boats, as he pointed to seven vessels at his docks -- out of commission because the fishermen who ran them had gone out of business.

Mr. Spaeth, 60, whose faded beachside cottage is sandwiched between new midrise condominiums, grew up fishing from his backyard. It was a heady time. Waitresses down the road at Woody's Waterfront in St. Pete Beach would clean a grouper at the water's edge and ceremoniously ring a bell as they toted the filet back to the kitchen. Commercial fishermen could venture into the Gulf of Mexico and in a week catch 5,000 pounds of grouper, sell it on the docks, then go to the tavern for a night of raucous celebration.

''We would jaw jack about who was catching what, and nobody would tell where they caught it until they got drunk,'' said Roger Koske, a former Madeira Beach city commissioner and retired commercial fisherman. ''Those were fun times, but they don't exist anymore, and they never will.''

The party started winding down in the mid-1980s when federal studies showed that grouper were being overfished. Along with the state, the National Marine Fisheries Service started significantly limiting how much fishermen could catch. The price of the local fish started jumping, and the bell at Woody's Waterfront stopped ringing.

The owner of Woody's, Marlene George, eventually found a substitute for the signature fish that was served on her ''famous grouper sandwich.'' She said her supplier told her ''it was a different type of grouper imported from Thailand.'' She started buying the frozen filets for about half the price of local grouper. ''It was not as tasty, but it was a great product,'' Ms. George said.

Meanwhile, the waterfront at Madeira Beach began changing. Condominiums swallowed up 1950s beach cottages, small motels, restaurants and fish companies, leaving tourists and locals with fewer spots to watch a gulf sunset over dinner and commercial fishermen with fewer places to unload their catches.

Two years ago, fishing for red grouper, the most common commercially caught species, was prohibited for two months because fishermen reached their annual quota early. The ban shut down docks, put fishermen out of work and left many other restaurant owners scrambling for the fish they were famous for.

''The closures really opened the door for the foreign fish market,'' said Mark Hubbard, whose family has owned Hubbard's Marina for years. ''That's when they really got their foot in the door with the restaurants, and then they turned around and did the whole switcheroo.''

When some restaurant owners saw their competitors still serving what they advertised as grouper, they grew suspicious.

''We couldn't get it. No one could get it,'' said Mr. Hubbard's sister, Kathleen McDole, who runs the Friendly Fisherman restaurant. ''How could these other people still be serving it?''

Last fall, The St. Petersburg Times, Gov. Charlie Crist's hometown newspaper, got suspicious too. It tried the advertised grouper at 11 local restaurants and found that only 6 were really serving it. The expos?ead the state to do its own sting.

That was when Ms. George said she found she had been a victim of the ''switcheroo.'' A state-conducted DNA test determined the fish she was serving as grouper was actually emperor, a West Pacific fish that is not a species of grouper.

She agreed to pay $2,500, which included the cost of the investigation and a $500 fine, and removed grouper from her menu, saying she could not afford to sell the local catch. ''At $11 to $12 a pound,'' she said, ''I've got to get $18 or $19 out of a dinner, which I can't do in my little place.''

Places like the Friendly Fisherman and Dockside Dave's, which rely on their reputations for serving fresh grouper, cannot afford not to pay the price. Mrs. McDole of the Friendly Fisherman said that for the first time she was advertising grouper at market price, instead of a fixed one. Dockside Dave's now sells its grouper sandwich for $10.95, compared with $8.45 a year ago.

That is O.K. with customers like Laura Joyce of Columbus, Ohio, who eats there every year while on vacation. ''It's not just that grouper tastes good, but it's fresher here,'' Mrs. Joyce said. ''You just can't get fresh fish where we live.''

Photo: Richie Hughes unloads grouper in Madeira Beach, Fla. Around the Tampa Bay area, a sting found 17 restaurants that sold ersatz grouper. (Photo by Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times)